


"My Father Used to Tell Me"

by definitely_a_textbook



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, a young caleb spends time with his dad, is caleb the only one on the team with memories of a good dad?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-24
Updated: 2018-06-24
Packaged: 2019-05-27 21:30:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15033716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/definitely_a_textbook/pseuds/definitely_a_textbook
Summary: When Caleb grew up in Blumenthal, he'd had loving parents and a future to look forward to. His father didn't have much education, but he was going to make sure Caleb did. Although, he still wanted some of his own knowledge to be passed down to his boy, so he told Caleb various superstitions he believed to be true. It was fun to believe his father sometimes.“It’s a rock,” Caleb said.“It’s a lucky rock,” his father corrected.





	"My Father Used to Tell Me"

Blumenthal was a small town, hidden in the shadow of Rexxentrum. It had been a privilege to live so close to somewhere so great. Caleb’s parents had grown up as farmers and they’d both expected to pass the trade down to their children, but Caleb had proven to be so much more than a farmer’s son. He read when he was meant to be working, hiding behind hay bales in the barn to read anything he could get his hands on. Learning was a breeze, so much so, that his mother gave up teaching him herself early on.

“He asks so many questions,” she’d told her husband one night, “I just don’t know the answers.”

They sent him to a real school afterward. There was no point in keeping such a brilliant boy as a farm hand. He was going to be so much more than either of them. The smile on his face every time he came home with more knowledge about the world was well worth the lack of extra hands and the additional work to keep all three of them fed.

Still, they missed having him around during the day. School took time and if Caleb was already surpassing their few years of schooling, they’d only see him less as time went on. So, Caleb’s parents cherished the moments they spent together. One of them would always be waiting outside Blumenthal’s little school house to walk him home and listen to him prattle on about what he’d learned or how slow he thought they were going through a certain subject.

“It’s in the book,” he’d sometimes say, “Why did she have to repeat it to everyone?”

“Not everyone understands like you Caleb,” his father would explain, “Maybe they read it, but didn’t understand. I know I hardly understand it.”

As Caleb grew, talk of their brilliant boy became more common around town and many of their neighbors began to bring up the Soltryce Academy. The academy often handpicked the best the empire had to offer and Caleb seemingly had a chance.

The Widogasts didn’t have a lot of money, at least not enough for an application to a prestigious school like the Soltryce. So, they began to save. A copper here, a silver there, and a few friends and kind acquaintances scrounged up enough money to fill a little jar with coins. 

They’d thought they were ready to apply. Caleb, thirteen at the time, was enthralled by the idea of learning magic in Rexxentrum. He could already produce lights that danced around the dark kitchen at night to amuse his parents and flick small sparks from his fingertips; not a tinderbox in sight. Caleb had certainly seemed ready, but one look at the requirements for consideration at the academy was all it took to stop them in their tracks.

All prospective students needed to be fluent in Common.

Caleb didn’t know Common. His parent didn’t know Common. In their little town, there might have been one or two people who knew just enough Common to hold a polite conversation, but the Widogasts were not those people. Caleb had read books that were once originally written in Common, but the translated text was much easier to find and cheaper to buy in their part of the empire.

His parents regretted not pushing him to learn Common early on. It seemed so obvious in hindsight. They’d asked around for tutors and bought him a book on translations that didn’t dip too heavily into their funds, but tutors were expensive and Caleb, for the first time they could remember, struggled. He could memorize the translations the book provided in alphabetical order. He could recite it word for word or tell you which page a certain translation was located, but the pronunciation was hard and forming grammatically correct sentences was harder. There was no one to hold a conversation within Common and a tutor they couldn’t afford had been so kind as to explain that Caleb wouldn’t succeed without someone to immerse him in the language.

The parents of a boy from Caleb’s from school had been pleased with this development. “He’ll breeze through life,” the boy’s father had said, bitterly, “It’s nice to see him struggle like the rest of us.”

Caleb’s parents hated to see their boy struggle. He wasn’t used to it and his mother wasn’t certain she wanted him to be. She’d expressed her concern to her husband after Caleb had gone to bed. She’d seen candlelight from under his bedroom door. She knew he was still reading and writing, trying so hard to get better all on his own. 

“He’ll learn it,” his father had promised her, “He’s a smart boy. He just needs a break from all this studying.”

So, his father took him on walks every Friday afternoon, right after school. They’d walk around the outskirts of town, by the river that slowed to a crawl just as it met Blumenthal. They’d walk until they met the northern bridge and then turn around to walk home. Caleb’s mother would have already begun to prepare for dinner and would ask them both for their help. Neither were ever willing to decline.

On these walks, his father was careful to steer Caleb’s attention away from Common and toward the scenery, what they’d talked about in school, or any schoolyard gossip he might have overheard, but it was never long before Caleb circled back to his studies.

“Hey,” his father said quietly one afternoon. He pointed toward the river bank, the edges littered with stones made smooth by the water. “Look at this.” He bent down and picked up a dark stone with a white ring around. He held it out to Caleb who took it with mild intrigue.

“It’s a rock,” he said.

“It’s a lucky rock,” his father corrected.

Caleb raised an eyebrow, annoyed by his father’s antics. He attempted to hand the rock back, but his father pushed it back into his hand.

“Sometimes rocks form these little patches across the surface. If the patch goes all the way around in a little ring,” he flipped the stone over in Caleb’s palm to show the other side. The ring was fainter on this side, but it was a complete ring nonetheless, “it means it’s lucky.”

“That doesn’t sound real,” Caleb said skeptically, but he was slightly inclined to believe his father, “Is it magic? Are they rare?”

“Very rare,” his father said with a smile and a nod. “You should keep it. It might help you with your studies.”

“You think so?” Caleb closed his fingers around the rock.

“It’s not like you need it,” he ruffled Caleb’s hair, “but a little luck goes a long way.”

They went home that afternoon and Caleb kept the stone in his pocket.

Common never came any easier, but Caleb learned enough that by the time he was fifteen, he didn’t need to bother with an application. Recruiters from Rexxentrum came to Blumenthal unprompted and unannounced, taking the money but offering immediate acceptance instead of lengthy paperwork. Choosing Caleb had almost seemed expected. If most things came easily, magic would come easily. With a little tutoring, Common and any other language he chose would come easily. Caleb was a worthwhile investment to the empire and his parents were so proud.

Caleb handed his father the stone they’d found before he left. He thanked him for finding it for him, but Caleb didn’t need pretend luck anymore. “I want you to keep it, so I can get it later,” he’d said when his parents tried to ask him to take it so that something of them would always be with him, “That way you know I’ll always come back.”

They had loved him with all their hearts and they still loved him, years later, when their house burned to ashes. Their only solace before they died was that they believed Caleb was safe in Rexxentrum. The doors to the house Caleb’s grandfather had built wouldn’t open as flames consumed their home. His parents couldn’t get out. They would die there, but Caleb wouldn’t burn with them and that was all they could have asked for.

-

Caleb needed a walk. It wasn’t that he disliked the people he’d fallen into haphazard friendships with or needed to be left alone right at that moment, he couldn’t push away the idea of just taking a walk. Beau had been kind enough to ask if Kiri could join him instead of telling him to take her and he had been happy to take her along. Nott jumped at the chance to follow along as well. Caleb didn’t need to be alone. He just needed a walk.

“You know,” Caleb said, his eyes scanning the wet and rocky ground on the edges of Barleben. He scratched at the stubble on his chin as a memory resurfaced. He never forgot a memory and maybe this time he didn’t want to. Nott’s ears perked up at his voice like they did every time someone, mostly Caleb, said something that caught her attention and she wanted to listen closely. “My father used to tell me that if a stone had a ring around it all the way,” a hesitant smile graced his lips and he twirled his finger in the air to indicate a ring, “it was lucky.”

“Oh, if a stone had a ring around it,” Nott nodded along as if she understood and motioned for little Kiri to help her look. Kiri, excited by a new game, fluttered about in search of this mysterious lucky item.

“Yeah, you know,” Caleb back peddled, realizing Nott might mistake there to be magic to be found in his recounting of his father’s little superstitions and his own sentimentality. “Like a, like a natural formation or coloration,” he wasn’t certain which word in Common was more appropriate. He quickly waved his hand dismissively at his own nonsense, “It’s doesn’t matter though. Just a good-” Caleb realized belatedly that he didn’t know how to explain it and began to aid them in the hunt.

It didn’t take long, surprisingly. Caleb had thought he’d have a harder time searching through the water and muck, but in only a few minutes, he pulled an oblong rock about the size of his palm from the dirt. He found a faint ring as he brushed away the earth that clung to it. It was smooth and cold to the touch.

“It’s a lucky rock,” he said when he felt Nott’s gaze peering over his shoulder.

“What will you use it for?” Nott asked, confusion present in her voice.

Caleb felt the weight of the rock in his hand. 

_It’s not like you need it, but a little luck goes a long way._

“I’m not sure exactly,” he said and placed the rock into his pocket. His new treasure was a comforting weight in his jacket pocket. “I’ve got some ideas.” He just needed to read a little further on a few aspects of transmutation.

**Author's Note:**

> My first fic for Critical Role! I got caught up recently and I've been really interested in Caleb's little mention of his dad and lucky rocks. I really wanted to write something about it (even though I'm supposed to be writing other things).


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